


escape room

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: What it says on the tin. Daisy is Director of SHIELD after S4 and she's set up an algorithm to pair agents in escape rooms as a team building exercise. She's paired with Coulson and they both wonder what that means.





	escape room

"I thought what we were doing all along was team building."

She sighs, and gives him a sympathetic look, as the door shuts behind them and they hear the lock turn from outside.

Coulson is being very grouchy about the whole thing, and she thinks it's mostly because an algorithm chose them as partners.

Because if they are paired up, now that she's Director and he's her Agent, it means something about how this works needs to work better.

That was the whole point of this exercise. To evolve as a team, iron out the pain points.

"You mean surviving? Maybe so," she tells him and bends down to pick up a cartridge from inside the box on the floor near the door.

"Andrew would say what I'm thinking is deflection, so I'll spare you," he tells her and gets to his knees in front of the door and slides his hand beneath the crack, catching a piece of paper.

It's a letter, and then he gets to his feet again and unfolds it and starts to read aloud.

"Computers have been with me all my life. Even as a child," he frowns and looks up at her. "I used to hack into other organizations systems to hone my skills." He pauses to stare at her again. "But one day, a shadowy organization came after me and threw me into this old storage room. I figured out how to escape. Can you?"

"Um, an algorithm also picked the themes of the escape rooms," she promises him. "I swear. But-"

"I didn't throw you in an old storage room when we met, so at least there's that," he says, crumbling up the letter and getting back to looking around, walking to the workstation. Examining everything carefully.

He hasn't been out in the field much lately, and she can tell that it's been hard for him to slide into more of an administrative role while she gets SHIELD up and running again. That he's practically itching in his own skin. Spending a lot of time in the gym to blow off steam.

Coulson would like to do paperwork as much as she would like to be interviewed by the media, she thinks and sees the circle in the door that peeks out into the hallway. It catches her eye. The way that its shape is distorted, like a camera lens.

"We used to do this kind of training back in the day," he calls out to her. "Always look in the trash," he says cheerfully, tossing the letter in like he's shooting hoops, then lifting the wire waste bin up to put it on the desk.

"I know, I read the files," she replies, trying to pry the lens off with her nails as best as she can, but ends up kicking the door to make the thin piece of glass come loose.

"Oh wow, someone threw away a VR headset," he says loudly, rifling through the trash. "It's missing the lenses, because, of course it is."

"I know you hate this, and I know you've got this all down already," she starts.

"But you're going to tell me that's not the point. The point is, the algorithm put us together because something about this needs work-"

He looks her up and down like he's cataloging the differences between them. What could have possibly changed like he's troubled by it.

"Or," she interjects, handing him the lens. "We were the only two left over that hadn't been paired off?"

"Huh. I didn't think about that," he says, pursing his lips and picking up a hat on the bookshelf next to them. "It has a six on it. That means something, right?"

"We can probably nail this and have the best escape time of all," she tries to convince him, taking the VR machine and snapping the lens into place. "And then everyone will-"

"Talk about how we finish each other's sentences?" he says with a small smirk.

She takes the hat out of his hand and puts it back on the shelf. "Six. Remember that number, Agent."

"I'm going to go try out the bed," he says mischievously, and while he crosses the room she turns to follow him with her eyes, and then sees him stretch out on the bed like he's trying to pretend to be the person who was last in the room.

She has a stray thought, wondering if he ever did that when she left SHIELD for six months. While he tried to follow after her. If he stayed where she had stayed. Tried to put himself in her shoes.

And wondering why she would want that now when she was pushing him away at the time. Trying to forget everything.

Coulson's sudden movement refocuses her thoughts, while he reorders the bed, lifting the pillow and mattress to find other objects stashed away inside, along with a white hat.

"Seven," he says about the hat, presenting the other objects to her, power cords and a USB drive. "I always keep my power cords under my mattress, by the way."

"I know what to do with those," she says, gesturing to the laptop on the desktop, and pulls out the chair in front of it to sit down.

"Hmm," he muses aloud, and she plugs it in and then pushes the chair back to get under the desk as he steps out of the way. "When is the last time you did some good 'ol fashioned hacking?"

"I don't do hacking anymore," she calls back to him from under the table. "I'm the Director of SHIELD. I...we....keep hackers out." She gets back into the chair and dust off her jeans, pushes her hair back off her face, as he watches her expression evolve.

"I've become the guy in a suit. I used to warn people about me."

"You're not a suit," he tells her, resting his hands on the back of her chair. "You're Quake, and Director Johnson, and-"

She turns the power on and plugs the USB drive in and lets it boot up. "And what?" she asks to fill the silence.

"Daisy."

The way he says her name, which seems suddenly so informal. And in this setting, on a fake mission together, jumbled with all the things they used to be, and her name pushes them all out of the way.

"You're Daisy," he tells her with a kind smile, that she can't see, but can hear it in his voice.

There is a login prompt, asking for a password, blinking in front of her to remind her to focus on the task at hand.

"The movie poster, by the bed," he mentions, jerking his chin at it. "Matrix."

"That's so cliché," she tells him, rolling her eyes and entering the word in and he leans over her shoulder to look at the file open on the USB drive. It's locked by another password.

"It's going to be a lot of passwords from here on out, isn't it?" he asks her.

"We have to find the other lens and get into the VR because it's going to give us the location of the exit key," she tells him, getting up from the chair.

"Closet," he tells her, as they both walk towards it, and she jumbles the latch in frustration to find it locked.

"Just quake it," he whispers next to her ear like he's baiting her.

"Why are you so eager to get out of this room?" she asks him, as her eyes flutter slightly. "You used to like how we worked in the field together."

"I, I don't want to get out," he tells her like he's choosing his words carefully. "But if we're going to be locked in a room together...It's just-"

Coulson stands next to her all the time. It's a joke around the base now that he's like her shadow.

He doesn't feel like a shadow. He doesn't feel like one of her agents, either, and she turns and wonders if he is thinking about this, too.

Could the algorithm have figured this out? By the repetition of their names in each other's files over the years? The things they've said in each other's reports?

"What are you thinking about?" he asks her in a low voice. He sounds more like he's wanting her to confirm what he's thinking.

Taking the first step is always the hardest part, she knows. Not wanting to mess up everything they've built together. 

She doesn't want to mess up this.

A green light buzzes in the corner letting them know that one of the other teams has escaped from their room first.

"I'm fine with coming in last," she tells him.

It surprises her that he's the one to make the first move, kissing her like he's suddenly in a hurry, as if it's something he's been waiting to do for such a long time.

Her back hits the door behind her, and he's still kissing her, slower now that she's regained her sense enough to kiss him back, feeling out the shape of his body beneath her fingers as they move over the fabric of his dress shirt. This body that's held her and comforted her and now it's this, too.

How close they've become in the last several months, how all-consuming leading SHIELD has been and he's always been there beside her, and now his tongue tickles the roof of her mouth, and it makes her squirm, in a good way, so good it makes him groan in reply.

She moves his hand down to her hip, as he lifts her up like they've spoken the same language to press their bodies together in unison against the door.

It creaks on its hinges when he starts to move against her, as she tightens her legs around him and holds him by the shoulders, wishing there wasn't so much clothing between them right now.

That's when she sees the small red light of the camera in the corner above them. Recording.

"We need to get inside that closet," she whispers in his ear. He stops grinding against her, and she closes her eyes at the sudden want of friction.

He lets her down and looks up at the camera like it's an intruder. "You think we can both fit?"

"We'll make it work," she tells him, sliding her fingers into his. "We always do."

They start to look for the key together.


End file.
